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Did You Know?

Austin was once the spinach capital of the U.S.?
Truck farms loaded spinach onto trains to ship all over the nation.
Boggy Creek Farm was one of the many mono-crop spinach farms in Austin during the 1920s. Spinach was taken to be washed in Oak Springs before loading it onto the train cars.

Historic Spinach Farm Austin, TX Riversi.jpeg.avif

Pictured above:

  • Spinach Farmers in the Colorado River Valley, Austin, TX

Location:

  • Butler Pitch and Putt on S. Lamar. This farm reached all the way down to the Colorado River where there was access to water for irrigation. The space to the left of the men would eventually become S. Lamar. 

When: 

  • 1920s. 

Photo Details:

  • The Seaholm Power Plant Tower is seen in the distance across the Colorado River

  • Two Moon Towers can be seen faintly in the distance across the river

  • The Driskill Hotel is the large, distant building to the right of the old water tower.

  • Just in front of the old water tower are train cars, used for sending spinach all over the country, running on the Union Pacific RR (1881). This track is part of the current railway graffiti bridge that crosses over the Colorado River (Ladybird Lake) just to the east of S. Lamar Blvd.

  • Center back of the Spinach field is a house similar to the 1841 Boggy Creek Farm House. 

In the very early 1900s the Colorado River Valley's nutrient-rich soil was used by Austin farmers. Many became spinach growers when science proved its health benefit over lettuce. and its popularity began to soar.  Spinach was hand-picked and loaded onto trains as seen in the photo and shipped to places such as St. Louis, New York, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.  
 
While it was once the largest growing and shipping region in Texas, it was quickly displaced by what became known as the “Winter Garden Triangle.” Del Rio, Laredo, and San Antonio formed the points of the triangle, with counties such as Uvalde and Dimmit being central (Dainello & Morelock, 2009). 
 
The Winter Garden Triangle had more cheap land and labor, not to mention weather that was less prone to freezes, and once they had the ability to get the infrastructure in place to produce and ship spinach to distant markets, they quickly displaced the Austin area. Crystal City has been know as the Spinach Capital and home of Popeye the Sailor Man since the mid 1920s.

​

Sources: Dissertation by Jonathan Thomas Lowell, UT Austin 2018 
Spinach Culture​

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